MANX BALLADS.
PREFACE.

As regards the words and the music of the Manx Songs, one is
constantly startled by their disparity. Many of the tunes seem
fitted, if not intended, to express emotions which find no utterance
in the words. And the question occurs are these the original
words ? In the case of the best known among the tunes,
Mylecharaine, the subject the song is of a very prosaic kind.
A dowry, for the first time in the Isle of Man, is given to a
daughter, and is condemned by the lieges as of evil precedent. But
the tune suggests a depth of ineffable melancholy. InKiwee fo
Niaghtey we have a tune, I should imagine, less trimmed to modern
associations, a very noble, rugged product of conditions which it is
hard to realize, even though we were to admit that a great snow-fall
and the rescue of the buried flocks may possibly have occasioned this
vehement and irregular outburst.

The Love-songs, for the most part, appeal to prudential
considerations rather than passionate impulse. They affect the
dialogue form, as in Moir as Inneen, where the mother
represents common sense, and the daughter betrays no consciousness of
individual passion, but merely the general preference for the married
as compared with the single life. In Scotch music we find a similar
state of things. No one can for a moment pretend to be satisfied that
the words of`` Robin Adair" were originally written to that tune,
still less to allow the superb madness of " Roslyn Castle"to be
adequately mated with such rubbish as that with which it is fain to
put up in books of Scottish Song. We cannot resist the conviction
that these great old tunes have lost their partners in life, that
both tunes and words were the outcome of a more primitive age. For
some reason or other the words were forgotten, and the tunes, in
their forlorn widowhood, descended to the embrace of churls and
varlets, or continued to exist in single blessedness, and became
those " Songs without Words which serve as the basis of popular dance
music.

The next thing which strikes us in the survey of our little field
is that the songs are so few in number, and, in quality, so trifling,
so unromantic, so unpoetical, and so modern. The causes may be
conjectured. In addition to those mentioned in Mr. Moore's
Introduction, I venture to suggest the following:

1. There has never been a Bardic class, nor have there been
any royal or feudal traditions which could foster such a class. Hence
the total lack of that stimulus which had so much to do with the
literature of the Border Ballads. Of anything like the native
literary instinct which has always obtained in Wales it is, in this
connection, useless to speak.

2. The football position of the Island, kicked about from
Celt to Norseman, from English to Scot. This must have affected the
language as well as the temper and spirit of the people.

3. We fell under the dominion of a great English family, the
Stanleys; but we were not thereby admitted even to the doubtful
advantages of the Feudal system. We were practically serfs, and this
serfdom continued for three hundred years, terminating only in the
Act of Settlement.

4. This was a period of unhappiness, " benevolent despotism" if
you will, but absolute ignorance  tyranny, in fact, with
certain compensations. One of them does not appear to have been
culture of any kind or sort. The pre-Reformation clergy did
nothing; it was their interest to do nothing.

5. Out of this mediaeval darkness we were delivered by the
Reformation. But there is no literary result:" who will sing us the
songs of Zion ? " We had none. I can imagine nothing more crushed and
broken than the spirit of the Manx people as they passed under the
Ecclesiastical tyranny which, indeed, had never, under any secular
regime, ceased, vampire-like, but with the best intentions, to
suck the blood of our forefathers. Feudalism was a fruitful source of
poetry. But we never had Feudalism. What we had was Serfdom. The
American slaves could sing; they are a light mercurial race and I
would not give our poor old" Kirree" for all their facile gushes of
sentimentalism. We were Celts, that never had fair play, we brooded,
smouldered, did not come off. Even the dash of Norse blood failed to
fire us; and, while the Russian serf has continued to sing or sob,
through all the centuries, melodic miseries now available as "
pick-me-ups" for Teutonic dilettanti, we have been silent.

6. It is impossible to over estimate the baleful effects
upon our song literature of the Church discipline as maintained by
Bishops Barrow and Wilson. They were both good and excellent men,
themselves no mean scholars, and capable of ancient as well as
contemporary literature. But it would never have occurred to them
that the Manxmen were fitted for anything except abject obediences
Archdeacon Rutter might fling a spell of Cavalier sentiment across
the sullen waters, might, even as Bishop, venture to imperil his
dignity by singing the praises of Manx Ale; but how about the people
? Lovesongs, satires, and so-forth, written by common men for common
men! " Lewdness, superfluity of naughtiness" let him " whistle
o'er the lave o't" in St. German's dungeon. That would have been, in
all probability, the fate of the Manx Burns.

7. The People went on to Methodism; that was another yoke.
The naturally bright and clever creatures, even after the long period
of suppression, were quite capable, upon their liberation from
serfdom in 1703, of asserting themselves, however late, in verse.
Methodism came just in the nick of time. The very springs of song
were seized by the new movement. Psalmody, Carvals, and the like,
occupied all serious minds. But these were comparatively modern. What
fascinates and tantalises us is the ignis fatuus of a real
relic of antiquity in the Fragment, Fin as Oshin. This may
bean echo of an Epic, or a Saga, but our copy dates only from 1762,
and, in its present form, it suggests no antiquity of origin, the
Manx exhibiting no archaic peculiarities. The subject, and interest
would seem to be ancient; but the Manx cannot have enjoyed the
unparalleled privilege of retaining an unchanged and unmodified
language for a period of seven hundred years.

We submit, however, that after all is said and done, this
collection is not without traces of a struggling utterance, and a
real, if depressed, national genius. If our Love-songs, for instance,
are sparse, and strike no thrilling note of passion or tenderness, I
think we can point to " Songs connected with Customs and
Superstitions" as being full of interest. I would direct special
attention to Berrey Dhone (p. 72); it is a witch-song of the
ruggedest and the most fantastic type.

Still the absence of great Love-songs haunts me. I would fain
accept Yn Graihder Jonylagh (The Demon Lover, p. 119) as an
original Manx song. Bet this is impossible. It may be a variant
of the Scotch song, but it is surely much more probable that it
is an imperfect, vacillating translation of that magnificent ballad.
Almost as lamentable, and even more total, is the absence of
War-songs. Love and War the two great strings of passionate
vibration no, it is no use, our lyre is a broken, perhaps an
essentially defective thing.

Great care has been taken to get at the original Melodies. No
preconceptions have been suffered tost and in the way of a faithful
reproduction of the notes as proceeding from the lips of those who
were most likely to have retained the genuine tradition. General
Celtic affinities are not lacking; but I believe it, will be found
that Mr. Moore's musical colleagues in the preparation of this work
have not, shrunk from resisting the influence of these affinities
when the course of melodic transition seemed to diverge from
recognised Celtic modes. Not that they would pretend to establish an
independent Manx mode, though, in case of need, they might not be
unwilling to risk such an audacity.

For the Harmonies I can only plead that they are grounded on
analogy. Of course, the question of Harmony did not come within the
range of the Manx songsters. But to us the harmonic motive is
irresistible, and, in most of the songs, flows naturally not to say
inevitably, from the melodic phrase. I can see no objection to
harmonies thus suggested and circumstanced. In case of superfluity,
or unsympathetic colour, the melody is always there to correct a bias
however modern, or a point of view however morbid. I believe that
Miss Wood's harmonies will bear the test of the reference that I have
indicated. They do not disguise the melodies. They facilitate the
musical situation, and satisfy a legitimate desire, the desire for
finality and completeness.